WSP08807

• File Number: 8220.106
• Description: Animas-La Plata
• State: CO
• Basin: San Juan/Dolores
• Water Division: 7
• Date: 10/26/1990
• Author: Judith Jacobsen
• Title: The Navajo Indian Irrigation Project and Quantification of Navajo Winters Rights
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Report/Study

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Winters. they agreed to share any short supply ratably with other users.40 Section

l1(a) of the 1962 authorizing legislation requires all users of water under the

legislation, including the Navajo Tribe, to have contracts with the Secretary of

Interior, contracts that must include a provision calling for ratable sharing of supplies

in time of shortage.41 The contract signed by the Tribe in 1976 pursuant to the

legislation contains such a provision.42 And the Tribal Council intended to share

shortages: in discussion of the 1957 draft NlIP bill, attorney UuTy Davis explained at

length that a Navajo agreement to share shortages would mean the loss of the priority

that Winters otherwise gave them. The Council voted to accept the provision
anyway.43

40~ Navajo Tribal Council Minutes, December 11, 1957 at 67-68 for Tribal Council
decision to share shortages. (hereinafter. Minutes, cited by date]. Tribal Council Minutes
are arranged chronologically and may be read with permission of the Tribal Chairman's
Office at the Records and Communications Department of the Navajo Nation in Window
Rock, Arizona.

41 NIIP Act, supra. note 1, Sec. l1(a). The shortage-sharing provision was part of
the earliest draft bill agreed to by the Navajo Tribe and the State of New Mexico. ~
Resolution CD-86-57 at 3. The provision was also part of every NIIP-San Juan-Chama
bill introduced. ~ S. 3648, 85th Cong., 2d Sess., Senate Hearin~ 1958, ~ note 17
at 3-5 (1958); S. 72, 86th Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Hearin~ 1959. ~ note 17 at 3-6
(1959); H.R. 2352 and 2494 and S. 72, 86th Cong., 2d Sess., San Juan-Chama
Reclamation Proiect and Navaio Indian Irrigation Project: Hearing on H.R. 2352. H.R.
2494. and S. 72 before the Subcomm. on Irri~ation and Reclamation of the House
Comm. on Interior and Insular Affairs, 86th Cong., 2d Sess, 1-4 (1960) [hereinafter,
House Hearing 1960]; S. 107, 87th Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Hearing 1961, ~ note 17
at 1-5 (1961); and H.R. 2552, H.R. 6541, and S. 107, 87th Cong., 1st Sess., House
Hearing 1961, ~ note 14 at 1-9 (1961).

42Contract between the Navajo Tribe and the Department of Interior, No. 14-06-
W-269, 1976.

43Minutes, supra. note 40, December 11, 1957 at 67-68. Davis gave a lengthy
explanation of the shortage-sharing provision to the Tribal Council. He stated clearly
that a Navajo agreement to share shortages meant loss of the priority that Winters
otherwise gave them. He said, "If this section were not in there and the Bill were to